Awesome, glad you're still pushing it, with having been quiet in here recently.
Some content removed as i was talking nonsense!
Seems some races are still being cancelled often enough, i got a refund for one this morning, and that was a very small 21 mile run organised by a local scout group. Howgills marathon went ahead on Sunday, as did "The Lap" which is a lap of Windermere, so am confident my Grizedale one will go ahead.
I saw your earlier post, no worries, it is hard for even experienced runners to understand the scale of races like the TORX. What you have to factor in is the massive amounts of vertical, about 28,000meters up, and down, and the down is harder than the up. Moreover, this is high alpine terrain so you are crossing boulder fields, scree slopes, narrow rdges, often on all fours with scrambling etc. In many exposed places a fall can be fatal; a Chinese runner died on the TOR course a few few years ago. So it is not that unknown to take 1 hour to go 1 mile, thus 357km take quite some time even for the fittest. You then have a lot of time just spent on eating, drinking, toilet, changing clothes, general pauses and recovery during big climbs or difficult sections. If you are under dressed then you waste energy shivering, and it can be dangerous in the high mountains far from help. Similar, if you get too hot and sweat too much you will get wet, and then risk getting cold later. With the changes in altitude and weather, it is surprising how often you are adding and removing layers. Suffice to say, that is just one example where lots of time can be spent and the overall pace is much slower than shorter races.
So 150hours is the limit, for a good runner about 120hours seems a reasonable target. In this time you have to sleep. There is no particular rules, except you should only sleep longer in the assigned life bases every 50-60km, and they warn against sleeping on the trail. Everyone has slightly different approaches, but typically it errs on the side of too little sleep. What I did last summer for the Swiss Peaks 360km is fairly standard. For the first 24-30 hours you don;t sleep, just push on through and take plenty of caffeine. Skip the first life base, so you end up at something like 100-15km and 7-8,000m of climbing You are truely dead at the end of this. At the life base you eat as much as possible, which is quite difficult with a sensitive stomach, quick shower and set everything up to charge. Lay in bed and set an alarm for 1.5 hours. It is actually very hard to sleep, your brain is buzzing, legs and body hurt, there is a lot of stress about the race to come, a lot of noise. Beds are in shared dormitories with people coming in every 5mins and switching on a light getting up or getting to bed on their own schedule. Some life bases are more organized with small sleeping areas and people grouped. Alarm goes off after seemingly 2 minutes in bed, you jump up and throw your gear on before your brain switches on. Shove as much calories and coffee down your gullet as possible and get out the door into the freezing cold night. Then aim to do about 12-18 hour to the next life base. During the 2nd day you end up needing to take a few power naps, these are strictly 5-10 minutes and you can wait until an aid station that has a tent or one of the mountain refuges. Only 1-2 naps the 2nd day. As each day passes ou need more naps and eventually you have to start seriously planning when to nap. You really want to be inside for safety/comfort, but it can be several hours between aid stations. So you need to think ahead, and if you are at the bottom of a valley or in a sheltered forest you can take a quick nap. You have to put on all your clothing (down jacket, rain jacket, hats, gloves) and set several alarms, again 5-10 minutes. You send longer getting dressed and undressed but it is important for safety. As the days go on you have real issues with sudden loss of higher level thought, which can be dangerous on the exposed sections of the course. Here it is worth really knowing the course and making a check list of places to be careful. Then you an plan strategic 0 minute nap before crossing a no-fall ridge or traversing a waterfall with slick rocks. The last days are a a mix of really vivid concentration and a lost blur, sudden hallucinations of all kinds of hideous creations before you snap out of it.
The exra distance is not at all linear. So many things that can go wrong, so many things you never think much about. A small blister will likely end the race. Eating ridiculous amounts of calories, it is more or less a given yo will spend quite some hours throwing up and making no progress as you get an electrolyte imbalance. The skin on the bottom of my feet started separating on the last day, kind of like a large blister where the whole sole of my feet was just loose and not attached to my feet. Small rashes or tender sports only get worse and worse to the point of excruciating pain. All kinds of weird muscle issues that appear form no where, hurt and make you miserable for 12 hours, then miraculously dispaear just before you quit.
